


Leave it to Me

by CuteButAlsoStabby



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: "asshole" as a term of endearment, Alternate Universe - Underfell (Undertale), M/M, Past Character Death, Recovery, Recreational Drug Use, Referenced immolation, Swearing, kustard - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:26:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27161797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CuteButAlsoStabby/pseuds/CuteButAlsoStabby
Summary: Sans wants to blaze it. Red is feeling nice.A recovery fic that takes place in some variant of the Ain't This the Life universe, at some point after the events ofIn the Dark.
Relationships: Sans/Sans (Undertale)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 23





	Leave it to Me

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [in the dark](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22351717) by [nilchance](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nilchance/pseuds/nilchance). 
  * Inspired by [ATTL: Shorts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25670518) by [Tsaiko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tsaiko/pseuds/Tsaiko). 



> The original idea for this comes from chapter one of [ATTL: Shorts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25670518/) by Tsaiko. I hope you don't mind me taking your very good joke and adding the inevitable (to me) Part B. Credit also of course to Nilchance for ATTL and Toby Fox for Undertale. This is a fanfic of a fanfic of a fanfic and it's about the limits of what my quarantine brain can produce.
> 
> Me: *holds up a Red bean* I just think he's neat.

There aren’t many people who can startle Red. Unfortunately, Sans is one of them.

‘Check me,’ he says urgently, after teleporting straight into Red’s goddamn kitchen.

Red drops his coffee mug and whirls around, bone weapon in hand, before the request catches up on him. He freezes in place, mind immediately scanning through all of the countless things that could have gone wrong, ranging from deadly illness (possible) to decapitation (unlikely). Before he can get much further than that, he checks Sans, and –

Sans. 4.20 HP, 1 ATK, 1 DEF. _Blaze it._

Red cracks up laughing, more from relief than anything else. As soon as he can speak again, he wheezes out, ‘Damn it, asshole, don’t scare me like that.’

Sans’s grin drops immediately. ‘Shit – I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have –’

Red waves dismissively. ‘Keep your hair on, sweetheart, it’s fine.’ He’ll survive a few heart-attacks; he doesn’t even have organs. ‘Told you your HP wasn’t done going up.’

Red grins. He isn’t sure if it’s the extra HP, the extra sleep or the sheer relief of knowing that Gaster isn’t around to fuck with him anymore, but Sans is looking healthier than Red has ever seen him. His eyelights are brighter, the shadows under them barely visible, and, residue guilt over the scare notwithstanding, his face seems more relaxed than usual – free from any of the pain Red has grown accustomed to seeing there. It’s a damn good look on him.

His face must have gone all soft or something, because he sees Sans relax in response. ‘Just wanted to get in before it went up to 4.21,’ he explains. ‘Though maybe that was a bit tasteless, after…’

‘After you borrowed my lighter to set yourself on fire?’ Red suggests brightly. ‘Yeeeeah. Might have been a bit tasteless.’

Sans winces. ‘Technically I didn’t set _myself_ on fire.’

‘Oh, yes, tell me more about those technicalities, sweetheart, you know how hot your bullshit makes me. Really lights a fire in my soul.’ He might be pushing it a little, but the sarcasm is at least a partial distraction from the memory of Sans’s pale, faltering soul. "Partial" meaning that his voice only shakes a little, rather than a lot. Small wins.

Wisely, Sans shuts the fuck up, and Red does his best to get his shit together before he does or says something he’ll regret. It’s about that moment that his mind wanders back to his own stats, and the check he’d performed shortly before Sans’s arrival. He takes another look, and carefully calculates the comedic velocity of his response.

‘Hey, check me,’ he says.

Sans blinks. ‘Why?’

‘No time to explain, sweetheart. Just do it.’

Thankfully, Sans checks him at just the right moment. His sockets widen. ‘6.9 HP,’ he reads out blandly.

If Sans isn’t going to say it, Red will. He points twin finger-guns at Sans’s stunned face and proclaims, ‘Ni-’

And all of a sudden, there’s a terrified skeleton monster up in his face, hands clutching at his shoulders and wild eyelights flicking up and down as if searching for injuries.

‘Why did your HP change?’ Sans demands. ‘Does that mean that Gaster –?!’

‘No!’ Red interrupts. ‘No. It’s not because of him. Only started going up yesterday. Had nothing to do with that fucker.’ He makes sure to look Sans right in the eyes so that the freaky lie detector parasite they have in common can confirm it as truth.

Sans relaxes slightly. Still looks like he’s ready to go take another flamethrower or two to whatever remains of Gaster’s dust (probably not much; Red made sure of that), so Red winds an arm around him and gives his cheek a gentle, affectionate nibble. ‘Real sweet of you to worry though, Sansy. Almost as if you like me or something.’ And doesn't that come close to admitting something himself?

Sans sighs. ‘Cut the bullshit, just this once, asshole. Tell me honestly: are you ok?’

Red grudgingly cuts what was in fact, by his standards at least, a relatively small quantity of bullshit. ‘I’m fine,’ he tells Sans. ‘Really. Never been better.’

It’s true, at least for the portion of Red’s past that he can clearly remember. If his HP ever was this high before, it would have been far back in the distant times before he and his brother had been forced to survive on the shitty streets of his shitty version of the Underground. Before Sans took on a similar caretaking role in his own universe. Before Red’s precious little brother gained his first LV. Before Gaster had ever laid his filthy hands on two of the three most important people in Red’s life.

Funny how easily that one most important person grew into three. Funny how easily he could admit that to himself these days, at least within the safety of his own head. But heck, it’s not like the rest of the world needs to know about how soft this soft universe has made him.

‘Seriously, don’t worry about it,’ he says aloud. ‘My HP probably should have gone up years ago, what with the LV and all. Just think of as being a bit delayed.’ With the immediate crisis averted, he grabs the paper towel and starts to clean up the coffee spill. Thankfully, the mug he borrowed (permanently) from Sans’s kitchen is fine, and even has a small amount of coffee left in it. He takes a swig. It tastes like lukewarm garbage.

A few moments pass, and Red starts to think he’s successfully changed the subject, before Sans asks, ‘So, why now, then?’

Fuck.

Red shrugs as casually as he can while deliberately avoiding eye contact. ‘Hell if I know,’ he replies. ‘Probably all that bullshit Boss and Papyrus keep spewing about healthy eating, exercise and sleep hygiene or whatever. Had to sink in eventually.’ He takes another sip of coffee.

Red is at least 90% sure that healthy habits have nothing to do with his HP increasing and about 110% sure that Sans sees through him, but all Sans says is, ‘Got it. You were just scared that my HP would catch up with yours.’

Red spits out his coffee. ‘Uh… what?’ he coughs. There’s a soft smile on Sans’s face that Red will decidedly not be reading into. Probably just smugness at scaring Red for the second time that day. Asshole.

‘I might even grow taller too, you know,’ Sans muses. ‘Now that I don’t have a parasite feasting on my magic, that is. Just a few inches, maybe, for good measure. But don’t worry: if I get tall enough to ride the rollercoaster, I won’t leave you behind. I’ll just buy us a nice, big trench coat so we can go together.’

‘Fuck you and fuck the roller coaster,’ Red retorts. ‘Don’t even _need_ a trench coat for the Tilt-A-Whirl.’

Sans nods sagely. ‘Sure. It's probably for the best that you, that trench coat and any illicit goods you could stuff into it stay well away from the average impressionable minor riding the Tilt-A-Whirl.’

Red snorts. Theatrically, he reaches into his jacket at the same time as opening his inventory, and pulls out a bong and three different packages of weed. ‘Honey, what kind of amateur smuggler do you take me for?’ he asks.

Sans eyes the stash. ‘Do you just always carry that with you?’

‘For all you know, sure.’ Red hesitates for a long moment, then offers, ‘Do you wanna?’

‘Huh?’

Red reaches into his jacket once more and pulls out his shiny new lighter, showing it to Sans. It’s different enough to the old one to let Red smoke a cigarette in peace, but similar enough that Sans can still bitch about his edgy goth aesthetic all he wants. ‘Gotta celebrate your new HP somehow,’ he tells Sans. ‘Think you can manage to avoid setting yourself on fire if we light up?’

He watches Sans’s face for the slightest hint he’s not into it. Fuck knows Red is hesitant, and he’s not even the guy that almost died. He just had to watch it, freak out a bit and maybe have a few nightmares about it, that was all.

Sans pauses to consider it for long enough that Red opens his mouth to rescind the offer, but before he can, Sans tugs the lighter out of Red’s hands and says, ‘I'll give it a shot.’

* * *

It's warm. It's comfortable. Red might be a little too warm and comfortable.

‘Just ’cause you’re a little small doesn’t mean you’re not a fucking planet,’ he bemoans. ‘That whole zone clearing thing is bullshit, lemme tell you…’

Sans just laughs at him. Rude. Pity Red can’t really find it in himself to get angry about it right now. Inexplicably, he’s way more fucked up on weed than he normally allows himself to get. That’s probably an issue. If they get attacked, he’s going to struggle to aim straight. He should really be more worried about that. This is definitely Sans’s fault, somehow.

‘You’re an asshole,’ Red points out peaceably. ‘It’s lucky you’re so cute.’

Sans chokes on his own laughter. ‘What did you just-?!’

As quick as his noodley arms can manage, Red pulls out his phone and searches out the button that makes photos happen. He crows with success and turns the device to Sans. ‘Seee?’

Sans rubs the part of his skull that Red accidentally smacked with the phone while he was figuring out how distances work. He takes in the image, and maybe also Red’s appearance, with an expression of deep bemusement. ‘You ok there?’

‘I’m great,’ Red replies. He nuzzles his head against Sans’s chest and purrs a little louder, just to make that clear.

At some point, Sans ended up lying beneath him. It’s a reversal of their usual positions for this sort of thing, but this is nice too. Sans is super fucking comfortable to lie on, and he keeps petting Red’s head as if he’s one of Edge’s cats. Fuck knows those cats are living the good life these days.

‘Hey,’ says Red. ‘I wanna be a cat too.’

Sans shakes with laughter. ‘Wow, you’re, uh… really out of it. I actually kinda feel bad.’

‘Why?’ Sans shouldn’t be allowed feel bad. Sans should feel nice all the time.

‘Should I have stopped you or something?’ he asks. ‘You don’t normally get this wasted.’

‘Hmm-yeah. Guess I don't,’ Red muses. ‘But you’ll take care of me, right? So, it’s fine.’

He leaves it there. He may be wasted, but he’s not quite so wasted that he’ll run his mouth beyond that. He could tell himself that its consideration for Sans that holds his tongue, but at this point, it isn’t Sans that’s skittish.

Letting himself lose control like this is nowhere near the biggest risk he's taken with Sans. It wasn't even the time he let Sans watch over him and Edge while Red slept. He's given Sans more opportunities to stab him in the back than he's given to anyone except his own brother, but he never felt as vulnerable as he did when it was _Sans's_ soul he held in his hands, or when it was Sans in his lap kissing him where anyone could see.

It’s one thing for his brother to give a damn about whether he lives or dies. Edge gives a damn about whether anyone lives or dies, even trash like Red. Especially trash like Red. They’re stuck together, and if all of Red’s harsh words and actions and every vicious beating their original world gave them couldn’t tear them apart, then nothing ever will.

But Sans knows what Red is. Sans can see him, right down to his marrow - right into his soul - and somehow Sans looked at that and saw someone worth protecting. Someone worth risking his life over.

Someone worthy of his affection.

What a fucking dumbass. Red adores him.

He looks up again just in time to see Sans’ face light up prettily in blue. Red immediately wishes he still had his phone at hand so he could take another picture for later, but he supposes there are always other opportunities to make Sans blush.

Instead, he just lays his head back down and closes his eyes with a contented sigh. He’s halfway to sleep when he hears Sans’s soft reply to the question he can’t remember asking.

‘Yeah,’ Sans says. ‘I will. Leave it to me.’

**Author's Note:**

> Not pictured:  
> \- Edge coming home to see Sans on 6 HP and Red on 9 and saying a soft, barely audible, "nice", because he has DIGNITY damn it.  
> \- Red sobering up but cleverly forgetting/repressing That Embarrassing Thing He Said and being confused about Sans' blushing.  
> \- Red finding the photo he took and maybe remembering a few things.  
> \- Sex scenes, because although those are neat to read, I'm an asexual virgin who Can't Relate.
> 
> I really like HP increases as a sign of recovery. Thems the good shit.


End file.
